diff --git a/src/validation.cpp b/src/validation.cpp
index 9ea8c31b7..60f44c595 100644
--- a/src/validation.cpp
+++ b/src/validation.cpp
@@ -156,6 +156,26 @@ namespace {
     /** chainwork for the last block that preciousblock has been applied to. */
     arith_uint256 nLastPreciousChainwork = 0;
 
+    /** In order to efficiently track invalidity of headers, we keep the set of
+      * blocks which we tried to connect and found to be invalid here (ie which
+      * were set to BLOCK_FAILED_VALID since the last restart). We can then
+      * walk this set and check if a new header is a descendant of something in
+      * this set, preventing us from having to walk mapBlockIndex when we try
+      * to connect a bad block and fail.
+      *
+      * While this is more complicated than marking everything which descends
+      * from an invalid block as invalid at the time we discover it to be
+      * invalid, doing so would require walking all of mapBlockIndex to find all
+      * descendants. Since this case should be very rare, keeping track of all
+      * BLOCK_FAILED_VALID blocks in a set should be just fine and work just as
+      * well.
+      *
+      * Because we alreardy walk mapBlockIndex in height-order at startup, we go
+      * ahead and mark descendants of invalid blocks as FAILED_CHILD at that time,
+      * instead of putting things in this set.
+      */
+    std::set<CBlockIndex*> g_failed_blocks;
+
     /** Dirty block index entries. */
     std::set<CBlockIndex*> setDirtyBlockIndex;
 
@@ -1180,6 +1200,7 @@ void static InvalidChainFound(CBlockIndex* pindexNew)
 void static InvalidBlockFound(CBlockIndex *pindex, const CValidationState &state) {
     if (!state.CorruptionPossible()) {
         pindex->nStatus |= BLOCK_FAILED_VALID;
+        g_failed_blocks.insert(pindex);
         setDirtyBlockIndex.insert(pindex);
         setBlockIndexCandidates.erase(pindex);
         InvalidChainFound(pindex);
@@ -2533,17 +2554,18 @@ bool InvalidateBlock(CValidationState& state, const CChainParams& chainparams, C
 {
     AssertLockHeld(cs_main);
 
-    // Mark the block itself as invalid.
-    pindex->nStatus |= BLOCK_FAILED_VALID;
-    setDirtyBlockIndex.insert(pindex);
-    setBlockIndexCandidates.erase(pindex);
+    // We first disconnect backwards and then mark the blocks as invalid.
+    // This prevents a case where pruned nodes may fail to invalidateblock
+    // and be left unable to start as they have no tip candidates (as there
+    // are no blocks that meet the "have data and are not invalid per
+    // nStatus" criteria for inclusion in setBlockIndexCandidates).
+
+    bool pindex_was_in_chain = false;
+    CBlockIndex *invalid_walk_tip = chainActive.Tip();
 
     DisconnectedBlockTransactions disconnectpool;
     while (chainActive.Contains(pindex)) {
-        CBlockIndex *pindexWalk = chainActive.Tip();
-        pindexWalk->nStatus |= BLOCK_FAILED_CHILD;
-        setDirtyBlockIndex.insert(pindexWalk);
-        setBlockIndexCandidates.erase(pindexWalk);
+        pindex_was_in_chain = true;
         // ActivateBestChain considers blocks already in chainActive
         // unconditionally valid already, so force disconnect away from it.
         if (!DisconnectTip(state, chainparams, &disconnectpool)) {
@@ -2554,6 +2576,21 @@ bool InvalidateBlock(CValidationState& state, const CChainParams& chainparams, C
         }
     }
 
+    // Now mark the blocks we just disconnected as descendants invalid
+    // (note this may not be all descendants).
+    while (pindex_was_in_chain && invalid_walk_tip != pindex) {
+        invalid_walk_tip->nStatus |= BLOCK_FAILED_CHILD;
+        setDirtyBlockIndex.insert(invalid_walk_tip);
+        setBlockIndexCandidates.erase(invalid_walk_tip);
+        invalid_walk_tip = invalid_walk_tip->pprev;
+    }
+
+    // Mark the block itself as invalid.
+    pindex->nStatus |= BLOCK_FAILED_VALID;
+    setDirtyBlockIndex.insert(pindex);
+    setBlockIndexCandidates.erase(pindex);
+    g_failed_blocks.insert(pindex);
+
     // DisconnectTip will add transactions to disconnectpool; try to add these
     // back to the mempool.
     UpdateMempoolForReorg(disconnectpool, true);
@@ -2591,6 +2628,7 @@ bool ResetBlockFailureFlags(CBlockIndex *pindex) {
                 // Reset invalid block marker if it was pointing to one of those.
                 pindexBestInvalid = nullptr;
             }
+            g_failed_blocks.erase(it->second);
         }
         it++;
     }
@@ -3066,6 +3104,21 @@ static bool AcceptBlockHeader(const CBlockHeader& block, CValidationState& state
             return state.DoS(100, error("%s: prev block invalid", __func__), REJECT_INVALID, "bad-prevblk");
         if (!ContextualCheckBlockHeader(block, state, chainparams, pindexPrev, GetAdjustedTime()))
             return error("%s: Consensus::ContextualCheckBlockHeader: %s, %s", __func__, hash.ToString(), FormatStateMessage(state));
+
+        if (!pindexPrev->IsValid(BLOCK_VALID_SCRIPTS)) {
+            for (const CBlockIndex* failedit : g_failed_blocks) {
+                if (pindexPrev->GetAncestor(failedit->nHeight) == failedit) {
+                    assert(failedit->nStatus & BLOCK_FAILED_VALID);
+                    CBlockIndex* invalid_walk = pindexPrev;
+                    while (invalid_walk != failedit) {
+                        invalid_walk->nStatus |= BLOCK_FAILED_CHILD;
+                        setDirtyBlockIndex.insert(invalid_walk);
+                        invalid_walk = invalid_walk->pprev;
+                    }
+                    return state.DoS(100, error("%s: prev block invalid", __func__), REJECT_INVALID, "bad-prevblk");
+                }
+            }
+        }
     }
     if (pindex == nullptr)
         pindex = AddToBlockIndex(block);
@@ -3492,6 +3545,10 @@ bool static LoadBlockIndexDB(const CChainParams& chainparams)
                 pindex->nChainTx = pindex->nTx;
             }
         }
+        if (!(pindex->nStatus & BLOCK_FAILED_MASK) && pindex->pprev && (pindex->pprev->nStatus & BLOCK_FAILED_MASK)) {
+            pindex->nStatus |= BLOCK_FAILED_CHILD;
+            setDirtyBlockIndex.insert(pindex);
+        }
         if (pindex->IsValid(BLOCK_VALID_TRANSACTIONS) && (pindex->nChainTx || pindex->pprev == nullptr))
             setBlockIndexCandidates.insert(pindex);
         if (pindex->nStatus & BLOCK_FAILED_MASK && (!pindexBestInvalid || pindex->nChainWork > pindexBestInvalid->nChainWork))
@@ -3882,6 +3939,7 @@ void UnloadBlockIndex()
     nLastBlockFile = 0;
     nBlockSequenceId = 1;
     setDirtyBlockIndex.clear();
+    g_failed_blocks.clear();
     setDirtyFileInfo.clear();
     versionbitscache.Clear();
     for (int b = 0; b < VERSIONBITS_NUM_BITS; b++) {